Over the last five to ten years, almost 3 billion new consumers in China, India, Russia and other emerging markets have started to enjoy consumer goods such as cars, consumer electronics, appliances and a wide variety of apparel and textiles.
The pace at which this growth is taking place is simply mind-boggling. Last week we talked about domestic growth in China, today we would like to take a brief look at India.
India's economy has experienced stellar growth over the last few years, with the current GDP growing at over 8 percent and retail sales growing at around 10 percent. Money supply (M3) is expanding even faster, with the latest figures as of July 2006 suggesting an 18.8 percent annual increase.
Domestic clothing sales amounted to about US$ 58 billion in 2005, according to the Economist, which is still relatively little compared to the US and Europe, where the clothing markets amount to US$ 220 billion and US$ 280 billion, respectively.
However, the potential in India is enormous, thanks to the fact that a large percentage of the population is in the 18-35 years age group, which has a propensity to spend a high percentage of its disposable income on apparel.
The consuming class has grown from just 35 million families in 1996 to around 80 million in 2005 and it is estimated that by the end of the decade the Indian middle class will be as large as that of the United States.
marketing@alchempro.com
